Miami Photo Gallery

First of all this is where I stayed on Miami Beach. My hostess has a very green thumb and plants everywhere. She lives on the intracoastal about a quarter mile walk to the beach and boardwalk. I went there for my day-before warm-up run and my after race stretch and nap.
We also visited South Beach where life is grand, even in the day time.
Nancy took me to the best places to eat, such as the Diner where we had breakfast on Saturday. Banana walnut pancakes with bacon and coffee suited me just fine. The patrons were worth the visit all by themselves.

You will remember I met up with Rachel and Brent for dinner at Rosanella's the night before the race for a little pasta carbo loading. We were very pleased with our dinner and felt pretty darned comfortable meeting up for the first time. They are good fun down-to-earth people. Best of all, Mean Rachel never made an appearance the whole weekend. Naomi called while we were dining and said to meet up at a non-existent first aid tent in the morning. Fortunately we found each other in the starter corral just before the gun and managed to have someone take a picture of us. Notice how relaxed and fresh we look. Okay; save that thought for the end of the race pics.

In the first mile Naomi and I stayed together and she snapped a picture of me and I one of her. Doesn't she look fast? Sadly, you can't see the manmouth cruise ship behind Naomi. There were at least a half dozen of them at their docks right along the causeway, all lit up.

When we reached South Beach the sun was just starting to lighten the sky as you can see here. There were a few of the night before's revelers still about and they gave us a wave as we ran by. Mostly, there were fans and family members with thundersticks, homemade signs and lots of enthusiastic cheering. We could see the beach from where we ran by.

At about mile 8 I caught up to Rachel. She was cruising along over the Venetian Causeway back towards the mainland. She had earbuds in and I startled her when I tapped her on the shoulder. With the lovely island background I offered to take her picture and here it is. No word on whether Brent put an offer in on any of the homes in the background.

As you can see in the picture we were just crossing over the drawbridge portion with the metal grates. One of the elite runners twisted an ankle on the grates and had to drop out.

I really regret not taking many more pictures during the race but once I hit the mainland I was concentrating on returning to the 4:15 pace and running with Diego.

This picture was in Coconut Grove before I stopped for orange slices. I had dropped off from Diego's pace and was poking along not yet aware that danger was ahead. Once my knee and hip cracked up on me I was no longer interested in taking pictures. I wanted to regain form and run. I surely didn't want to look like a friggin' tourist walking along taking pictures.

At the end I met up with everybody and we took a few more pictures. Sitting down was a pleasure. Standing back up for pictures was a challenge.
Join us next year. It'll be fun all over again.